Mollie Hemingway

He wants an escape from these feelings, but he also doesn't want an escape from them.

And in the context where he's talking about this, they have come up with a solution to the sickness of having an imagination or being an individual, which is like a frontal lobotomy to remove that portion of your brain so that you won't be subjected to these torturous thoughts.

And he's wanting that.

He wants to be relieved of all this pressure that comes with freedom.

And he wants someone else to exert some kind of authority.

And in the absence of a loving, functional family, you do seek out these authoritarian situations.

And I think that's why so often totalitarian systems work to destroy the family.

Because they know that they can so much more easily control you if you don't have a loving family.

I didn't like that.

I didn't like that line either.

It's kind of unfortunate.

I mean, Zamyatin was the son of a Russian Orthodox priest.

He very much had a problem with organized religion that he was brought up with.

He apparently had a rough childhood too and was very lonely.

And that definitely comes out in the book, his opposition to organized religion.

There aren't a ton of references to the before times, but there are, you know, he references Adam and Eve and this perfection in the Garden of Eden and how stupid Adam and Eve were to choose freedom and, you know,

Yeah, it's a definite part of this book and reflects his own views on religion.

So this was another one of those things that upon rereading, it hits you differently.

When you're in college and you read this book, you're thinking, oh, yeah, we need to do whatever we can to fight against totalitarian systems wherever we encounter them.

Rereading it more recently, I was thinking it's really more about balance and how prudent people figure out how to balance freedom and systems that are good for organizing people.